The Pirate Empress

by Deborah Cannon

  “She won’t let me do anything. I don’t want to hide in the hold while you are out stealing treasure.”

  “We do not steal treasure,” Li said, and steadied her voice. “You must hide from the fox faerie. She is looking for you. And the Mongol Esen seeks you as well.”

  That night darkness descended over the junk like black ink. Li sent Wu below with Number Three Daughter before returning to deck to prepare for the raid. Po and Madam Choi, and Numbers One and Two Daughters had painted their faces with green dye, and applied bits of bamboo flowers to their cheeks and arms to simulate mould. The greenish-white effect mimicked fungus infested corpses, and to cap the disguise they streaked their hair with rice flour. The smell of rotting flesh was achieved with a generous smearing of rat guts.

  Since the death of her husband, one of Madam Choi’s best ruses was to mime the hopping corpse. Villagers feared the undead pirates that haunted the coastline. Li was unsure if the life-force sucking Jiang Shi was real, for she had never met a hopping corpse and hoped never to meet one. But in the taverns and bars, tales told of the practice of travelling a corpse over a thousand miles. Families, unable to afford wagons to carry their dead to their homelands for burial, would tie the corpses to long bamboo rods, and when the bamboo flexed, the corpses would hop up and down. Madam Choi had decided that Jiang Shi was real, and she disguised herself and her pirate family as such to frighten their human prey.

  It was almost midnight before Madam Choi’s accomplices started up the coastline toward the unwary merchant junk with the Ghostfire in its wake. Li’s senses began to tingle. Hurry, the tiny spirits whispered. Li stroked her sheathed sabre and crawled to the edge of the boat. The scalp beneath her topknot prickled. Shivers coursed along her arms beneath her sashed tunic, and she hurled her grappling hook and began to climb.

  Several lanterns aboard the merchant junk were lit, and Li peeked over the rail to scout out their quarry. She turned to squint down into the gloom where the others awaited her signal, and she almost signed that there were no watchmen, when a dagger thrust into her face.

  “What’s this? Get a load of this,” a watchman called to his mate waving the blade about, making ripples in the luminescence. Li moved out of knife-range, while the flittering Ghostfire bedazzled the staring men.

  “Fireflies,” the mate said.

  “Can’t be,” the watchman answered. “We’re at sea. The wind would blow them away.”

  Li stifled a laugh and flapped her arms to make the shimmering lights explode into new depths of brilliance. How many aboard this junk? Only two were visible. She beckoned to Madam Choi, who motioned for her family to move. Po started to climb, and his sisters followed. The man with the dagger gripped the side of the junk, peering down, and missed spotting the serpent boat masked by the black sea. Nor did he detect its occupants who were dark with green paint and rat’s blood. He never saw Li at all. He saw only the magic of Gwei-huo, whose dazzling dance distracted the sailors long enough for the pirates to board.

  “Jiang Shi,” the seaman whispered, backing away when Po emerged over the gunwale.

  The watchman dropped his dagger, and his mate froze in the middle of the deck, mouth half-open. Li distanced herself from the men, while Madam Choi and her daughters appeared on deck. The pirate chief demanded access to the hold. The terrified sailors indicated the center of the deck, and with iron bars lifted the iron grate, to allow the pirates to descend.

  Madam Choi and her family took only what they needed. Food. Rice, oil, soybeans, dried fish. This ship happened to be carrying silver as well and Po stole several taels of silver with which they could purchase what they needed at the next port.

  They might have returned to their ship without casualty if not for the vanity of Number One Daughter. The ship carried the latest in women’s cosmetics for the Ming nobility, and she pocketed vials of rouge and lip balm, kohl for sultry eyes, and hair gel made from the finest pine resins of the northland. One of the sailors, who at first froze in fear, suddenly regained his senses when it hit him that a corpse would hardly be interested in beauty products. In fact, why were they interested in edible commodities either? Did corpses eat? No! They sucked the life essence out of human victims. They had no use for rice or millet or soybeans. Except to count them. Or so the myths told. Hopping corpses were insatiable counters.

  The sailor dropped into the hold and flashed his dagger, tossed a handful of rice at the girl but she only scowled and hissed.

  “So!” he cried. “You are a hopping corpse?” He flipped his dagger at her and it struck, felling her on the instant. Number Two Daughter screamed, Po drew his sword, and Madam Choi’s eyes burned with demonic rage. The wine and gunpowder cocktail she had drunk was overrun by a battle cry fiercer than any male warrior’s. She hurled her halberd at the murderer. The man ducked. The pointed end struck a different sailor and collapsed him onto his back, splitting his skull open. The hue and cry was up. They had to get off the ship. Li leaped into the hold after Number Two Daughter who squatted by her sister. Li slapped her in the face to bring her to her senses. Lesson learned, she thought harshly. Vanity can kill you.

  Li placed a hand to the victim’s throat, yanked the dagger out, releasing the full flow of her blood, and threw it at an attacking sailor. Number Two Daughter sat paralysed watching the blood gurgle out of her sister’s chest, tears glistening on her cheeks. “Get up,” Li ordered. “Help me get her into the serpent boat.”

  The girl was so stunned she could do nothing but weep as blood from Number One Daughter oozed all over her tunic. “I mean it!” Li shouted. “If you don’t want to join her in the Netherworld, get up. Now!”

  The sailors were blind to her presence, and Li sidestepped as Number Two Daughter sucked up her tears and found her feet. Fire blazed in her eyes brought on by the need for revenge. A good swordswoman, she took over the fighting while Li dragged the injured girl out of the hold and onto the deck. No one tried to stop her because no one could see her. Stunned by the impossibility of what they did see, the sailors on deck stood immobilized. All they witnessed was a limp girl lying on her back, bouncing methodically across the deck, leaving a trail of black blood, a shimmer of living lights floating ahead of her.

  Po and his mother and sister raced up the companionway on her tail. They abandoned almost everything they had stolen. Without their lives, food and silver were nothing.

  They slipped over the side and into the serpent boat. Li willed the Ghostfire away to protect their location. In darkness, they fled by sea before the majority of the ship’s inhabitants were aware they had even come. Li stared at the merchant junk whose name was imprinted on her memory.

  Say Leng. Dead Beauty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Esen’s Madness

  Number Two Daughter would not stop crying. Silence! Li needed all her senses to identify what was wrong. She looked behind, but no ship followed. They had not taken enough booty to make it worthwhile for the merchant junk to make chase, and yet she knew something was terribly amiss. The figurehead of Xiang Gong loomed near, and a dark shadow moved beside it.

  A Mongol stood at the prow of the pirate junk with Wu in his arms, a dagger to his throat, and Li gasped in horror as her son cried out in fear. “So,” she said, mustering all of her courage. “You have found me at last.”

  “And I have found the little one, too. This one should never have been born. Now drop your weapons.”

  “Why should we drop our weapons? You will kill him anyway.”

  “Yes, I will. But I also want you.” The warlord smiled. “You have bloomed into a very beautiful young woman, Lotus Lily. Get aboard.” He turned to Madam Choi and her family. “You others, go where you will. I have no quarrel with you.”

  Madam Choi rose, rocking the boat. “I will go nowhere until I retrieve my other children.”

  “Take them. I want only this boy and his mother.” Esen nodded at three girls standing by the hatchway, and Madam Choi glanced from them to the
dead girl in the serpent boat. Number Two Daughter was holding her hand, and Li could tell that she knew her sister was past help; none of Madam Choi’s remedies could replace the lost blood.

  Li stood to obey the mad warlord, but Madam Choi shot out an arm.

  “I can’t let him take Wu,” Li said.

  If Madam Choi’s black eyes could have darkened any more they would have, but she nodded, stood down, firing a scathing look at Esen.

  The three girls prepared to disembark. The oldest had her hands tied behind her back. The next oldest, Number Four Daughter, was eight years old, and glared rebelliously, reminding Li of herself at that age: fearless, invulnerable and completely stupid. Muscles tense, Li sent a warning glance at Madam Choi. She had lost one child; she wasn’t about to lose another. “Esen,” Li said to distract him. “I am coming aboard now.”

  The glint of a fish knife flashed in Number Four Daughter’s fist as Li climbed the rope ladder to the deck, and placed her body between Esen and the girl. With her face to the warlord Li wiggled her fingers against her spine, motioning for the girl to slip her the knife.

  The cold wood of the knife’s handle closed in her sweaty fist, and she kept it hidden as she ordered the girls to leave.

  “Wait! Show me your hands,” Esen commanded.

  “Jump, girls!” Li shouted. The younger ones helped their manacled sister overboard, and they landed in the arms of their mother and brother.

  Li took aim, but before she could act, the warlord crumpled to the deck. Wu tumbled out of his arms, the Mongol’s dagger falling with him, and raced to Li. She scooped him up—but it wasn’t she who had caused Esen to collapse in convulsions. She didn’t care who had; she wanted him dead, and flung her fish knife into the dark in the direction of his thrashing. But it stopped midflight, with a loud ping, striking metal.

  She placed Wu onto his feet on the deck and told him to stay put.

  A shield lowered, and the man behind it kicked both blades out of reach, before resting his shield against the cabin’s bulkhead. He smiled. “Lotus Lily, you are a lost cause. Remind me tomorrow to teach you how to walk like a lady.”

  Li clapped a hand over her mouth nearly collapsing with joy as the impossible dawned on her. “Tao! You’re alive!”

  Tao glanced at the black, moonless sky. On the horizon a grey light sat on the edge of the world. “I don’t have much time. I’ve come to warn that Jasmine still seeks you. Somehow she got wind that her plot to poison you failed.”

  “But why did you stop me from killing Esen? It is he who wants me dead.”

  “Esen is harmless now. He has lost his voice and his power. No one follows him. The Mongols have a new leader.”

  “Altan,” Li said instantly. “But I still want his brother gone. As long as he lives he will try to murder my son.” She gestured for Wu to approach, and he came boldly to stand before Li’s former tutor. “Wu, this is Tao. He is a great teacher.”

  Tao hoisted his brows mischievously, and said with a sardonic smile, “So, now I am a great teacher?”

  “The tea ceremonies were necessary. I realize that now.”

  “And this little one,” Tao said, dropping to one knee. “Who is your teacher? Who taught you how to disable your kidnapper?”

  Li glanced in astonishment at her son, before sending her gaze to the thrashing Mongol. “You did that?”

  Wu nodded. “When I saw you were going to surrender to that hateful barbarian, I knew I must do something.”

  Esen’s eyes bulged out of his head and his lips gasped for air, unable to get enough because his own blood was drowning him. Li stooped and dislodged Wu’s wooden blade from the warlord’s throat forcing the blood to gush out of the open wound. Esen grabbed her ankle while he spewed red mucus from nose and mouth. She kicked him hard and he convulsed.

  “Madam Choi,” Tao said. By now the pirate woman and her children had boarded. She stared at him, astounded that he knew her name. “I am Tao. I am sorry to introduce myself under such unpleasant circumstances, but this man is dying and needs your help. He will be of more use to us alive than dead.”

  “How so?”

  “Look at him. He is a broken man, eaten up by the need for revenge. When he is healed he will see that his enemy is not Lotus Lily or her son, but rather his own sibling and his lover, the fox faerie. They are his betrayers.”

  “How can a madman be of any use to us?”

  “Master Yun’s plan was always to use Esen, not to kill him.”

  “And where is the great warlock now? He has abandoned us to these invaders.” Madam Choi took a step closer, and squinted at his odd appearance. “What is wrong with you?”

  Tao gazed at the green dye and rat’s blood on her face, now smeared to a mud tone. “I am what you pretend to be.”

  Madam Choi’s mouth fell open and did not shut as Li walked over, one hand clasped to her son’s. She touched Tao’s sleeve. It felt real. His face was not verdant or fuzzy with white mould. His hair was not frosted with silver. Nor did he limp like the hopping corpse.

  “You believe it, don’t you, Li?” Tao asked. “I have been watching you for many years now. I can move with the wind. But only when the red wheel of the sun sinks below the black sea.”

  “You mean you can fly?”

  “Show me,” Wu piped up.

  Po stepped up beside Li, shot a knowing look shoreward. “I understand now. I see why Mao Mao left the bamboo forest and why it died. It was because of you.”

  Tao dropped his head in remorse. “I’m afraid so. I never meant to harm her, but I needed the life essence of the bamboo to sustain my existence—”

  “So that you could spy on Li!” The voice that boomed was not Po’s, and everyone turned to look as Lieutenant He Zhu climbed over the gunwale and flashed his sabre at Tao. Below the pirate junk was a makeshift raft strung together with dead bamboo.

  “Stay away from him,” Zhu warned. “He reeks of danger.”

  Madam Choi scowled. “I do not care who all of you are or what you are or why you are here. My daughter, my number one daughter, Leng, is dead.”

  Li squeezed her eyes shut to control all of the conflicting emotions. That was the first time she had ever heard Madam Choi call Number One Daughter by her name. They must give the dead girl her proper due, and then deal with Esen. Tao couldn’t possibly expect Madam Choi to heal the mad Mongol after the death of her favourite daughter.

  Despite the shock of Zhu’s unexpected appearance, Li grabbed the wrist of his sword hand to keep him from slicing off the eunuch’s head. “Tao is not our enemy.” She turned to Madam Choi and bowed. “The choice is yours. You have no obligation to save Esen’s life. If I went with my first feelings I would leave him as he is, drowning in his own gore. But Tao says that he should live. I believe in Tao. But you must do what you believe. Po and I will bring Leng to her bed and prepare her for her journey to the Netherworld.”

  He Zhu was hesitant to re-sheath his sabre and glared openly at Tao.

  “You made it here in record time,” Tao said. “The gemstone speaks to you.”

  Zhu tucked his sword arm under his mantle, and scowled. “How did you get here before me? It has taken a month to reach this place by horseback.”

  Then he narrowed his eyes and turned his vision on the dying Mongol. “If I learn that you led this savage to Li, I will personally kill you.”

  “How many times must I remind you, Lieutenant? You cannot kill me.” Tao softened his gaze. “Why must you fight with your senses and your will. Why can’t you believe what you see? When have I ever harmed you, Zhu? When have I ever shown Li anything but love? Do you really think I’ve come here to murder her?” He paused again, his expression compassionate. “It is likely the Mongol followed your trail to Li’s hiding place.”

  The face of the warrior-turned-monk crumpled, and he rethought his accusation.

  “No, you are not to blame, Zhu. Something about the barbarian’s arrival here is suspicious. How did he get here?�
� Tao went to look over the side of the junk and saw no means of transport. “I see only your poor excuse for a raft attached to the hull. Where is his?” Tao scoured the deck around the dying Mongol and discovered a gold and azure peacock feather. He looked into the sky, frowning.

  His brow unwrinkled. “I would not believe it was possible... but... anything is.” He glanced down at his own form, at his burial gown and his red-slippered feet. “Just look at me. I would not have believed my undead existence possible had I not become a hopping corpse myself.”

  “Then you are as vile as that foreign devil there,” Zhu fired back, and slashed a second look at Esen. “Whatever he has done, whatever sorcery you are about to accuse him of, you are no better. All the stories I have heard concerning hopping corpses say they intend nothing but evil. They thrive only by killing others.”

  “And you don’t believe me when I tell you that I do not survive on the blood of humans? You have seen the barrens surrounding Lei Shen’s temple. Now look to the devastation that was once Mao Mao’s home.” Tao jabbed a finger to the brown, wasted shoreline. “Is that not proof enough? Your eyes do not lie, Zhu. I survive by absorbing the life essence of plants.”

  Tao waved the gold and azure feather in his face. “But that is the least of your worries. If this feather means what I think it means, and Esen has tamed Fenghuang, then it is vital now that the warlord, Esen, live. Madam Choi—” Tao swung to the pirate woman. “Are you only a pirate? Or will you help this man?”

  %%%

  Madam Choi agreed to aid Esen on one condition: that the death of Leng, Number One Daughter, be avenged.

  “I cannot condone this bargain,” Zhu said. “That one—” he indicated Esen. “—Should die. Revenge for the girl means the killing of Imperial soldiers.”

  “Only if they get in my way,” Madam Choi said.